Scottish First Minster Alex Salmond rejected media control recommendations made by his own expert panel. Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

Alex Salmond is poised to accept a UK-wide voluntary regulator for Scottish newspapers after rejecting proposals from his own expert panel for a mandatory system of statutory control in Scotland.

Scottish ministers have confirmed they have been working for some weeks on a cross-party agreement to adopt the new press regulator being pursued by David Cameron and other UK party leaders, which may be backed by special Scottish legislation.

The concessions, confirmed over the past 24 hours by the first minister and his culture secretary, Fiona Hyslop, follow several changes of direction by the Scottish government in the 16 weeks since Lord Justice Leveson published his findings into press misconduct.

In a statement at Holyrood on Tuesday, Hyslop confirmed the Scottish government would not adopt proposals for a compulsory Scottish regulator made on Friday by an expert panel appointed by Salmond last year, and headed by the retired judge Lord McCluskey.

She told MSPs her government wanted a self-regulatory system similar to the Leveson model, and was instead striving for a deal with other parties and the UK government after discussing a UK-wide regulator in early March, some 10 days before she and Salmond received McCluskey's report.

Addressing MSPs on Tuesday, she said that the royal charter plan agreed on Monday by Cameron, Ed Miliband, the UK Labour leader, and Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, had been an additional "major" development which her government had to study seriously.

Hyslop and Salmond's officials confirmed they were now preparing to host cross-party talks in coming weeks with the UK culture secretary, Maria Miller, and other Scottish party leaders, on adopting the royal charter model.

Those talks will also focus on introducing Scottish legislation which would be needed to give it the same legislative footing as it will have in England and Wales, but could also include extra measures to reflect Scotland's different laws on defamation.

Media lawyers have also pointed out that the Scottish cannot impose exemplary damages – a measure proposed by Leveson to punish any publishers who had broken press codes but were not members of the new regulatory body.

Claiming that Scotland could show much greater resolve and leadership than the UK parties on Leveson, Salmond had originally proposed setting up a new Scottish voluntary regulator, underpinned by statute and modelled on Ireland's press ombudsman, with a separate Scottish press council.Faced with widespread scepticism, the first minister set up a review chaired by retired judge Lord McCluskey.

The panel had been asked to find a Scottish model for Leveson's voluntary body but it rejected that, stating instead last Friday that Scotland should introduce mandatory regulation which would include online-only news media, potentially including blogs and sites such as Twitter.

McCluskey's proposals, which went further than Leveson's recommendations, were immediately rejected by Salmond's opponents and his allies, as well as the Scottish newspaper industry. The first minister conspicuously failed to endorse them while describing them as "an important contribution" to the debate.

Salmond confirmed on Tuesday he is instead "very keen" on winning cross-party consensus for a voluntary system. In an interview with BBC Scotland, he appeared to accept that the royal charter model was the only proposal now on the table, taking a more conciliatory line than he did last November.

"Let's look at the royal charter idea, let's look at it with an open mind and see if it meets Scottish circumstance and whether it answers the call of those who have been the victims of press malpractice, within the imperative of having a free and fearless press," he said.

It later emerged that Hyslop had met Miller and the UK government's Scottish law officer, the Advocate General Lord Wallace, in London to discuss that deal on the sidelines of a joint meeting of all the UK and devolved governments earlier this month.

In her statement to MSPs, Hyslop implied heavily the Scottish government had already agreed with the coalition government in London to work on a UK-wide model some weeks before McCluskey's panel had reported.

"Some of the issues around incentives and arbitration are important to Leveson but that's why we have to examine some of these issues has to be seen in the context of Scots law," she told MSPs.

"I have a previous agreement with Maria Miller and indeed the advocate general that once an agreed position from the UK government was achieved, we could examine what the implications are, in particular for Scots law."